Paul Sutton...

... is free. Keep an eye on Sean Bonney's blog for details of a benefit reading.

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'Kenny Goldsmith is Wrong'(?)

Read Goldsmith's It's Always a Bad Time For Poetry, unrelated but contextually joygasmic, then read this:

Goldsmith, the Flarfists, and Hypertexters are the prominent examples (though one could argue John Ashbery and Albert Goldsmith, no relation to Kenny have been doing this sort of thing for awhile, and certainly the l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e=d=o=I=h=a=v=e= t=o=k=e=e=p=d=o=i=n=g=t=h=i=s=? poets react against "easy" language by disrupting expected patterns of association and syntax). So the question becomes, are Kenny and Flarfy simply surrendering to the lame-language-leviathan instead of resisting easy grossy stimulus?

via Silliman

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Post_Moot

A radically inclusive inauguration anthology:

A monument to tolerance and an experiment in radical democracy postmoot is LIVE on January 17th-20th 2009  and a cross-linked archival resource thereafter Presenting ANY and ALL responses to this historic event (no matter what your point of view) . . . in TEXT, POEM, PHOTO, SOUND-FILE, SPEECH, SONG, TWEET and SHORT VIDEO forms. Use email - send photos and text messages right from your phone - tweet via Twitter. This is an initiative of the post _ moot collective (cris cheek, william r. howe and cathy wagner) in collaboration with Christian McLean

Drop it like it's hot.

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Met Poet, In Bar, Told Story.

I got this e-mail in my inbox and thought it might be interesting to post about:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/france-terrorism-tarnac-anarchists Investigators believe that the arrests at Tarnac provoked "reprisals" in Athens, where the offices of the French news agency Agence France-Presse were attacked with makeshift incendiary devices, and in Hamburg, where the French consulate was daubed with paint. A claim of responsibility for the sabotage of the TGV lines was, police say, sent to a German newspaper from Hanover and signed "those who have had enough ... in memory of Sébastien", believed to be a reference to Sébastien Briat, a young anti-nuclear militant crushed by a nuclear waste train in eastern France exactly four years before the night of the recent spate of sabotage. Coupat and Lévy had taken part in demonstrations and actions in Germany, the US and the UK. Coupat has also been accused by investigators of anonymously writing a book, The Coming Insurrection, published by a little known Paris publishing house in 2007. The book, which has been translated into English and posted on US and UK anarchist websites, was found in the possession of three young activists arrested after detonating a bomb in a field. It contains instructions about sabotaging railways and other means of "destroying the power of the police, seizing local political power by the people, and blocking the economy". A statement from the publishing house said the author was "a committee from the subversive tendency". But some accuse France's right-wing government of both exaggerating and exploiting the left-wing threat. "They are turning my son into a scapegoat for a generation who have started to think for themselves about capitalism and its wrongs and to demonstrate against the government," said Gérard Coupat, father of the alleged ringleader of the Tarnac group. "The government is keeping my son in prison because a man of the left with the courage to demonstrate is the last thing they want now, with the economic situation getting worse and worse. Nothing like this has happened in France since the war. It is very serious." Author and researcher Christophe Bourseiller told the Observer the threat was being exaggerated. "Yes, there is a certain renewed level of agitation, but there is a huge difference between deliberately slowing down a few trains without injuring anyone and something like the Madrid bomb blasts," he said. "The Ministry of the Interior has made it look like the Tarnac arrests halted a serious campaign of violence with a huge, huge media operation." Certainly there is a widespread fear at the ministry in the Place Beauveau of violent protests in the coming months. A powerful and growing movement among schoolchildren forced the tactical withdrawal of wide-ranging reform plans after demonstrations in Lyon led to clashes with the police, mass arrests and the burning of cars. Trade unions have promised a series of mass stoppages in the coming months. Among a population already made bitter by static salaries, rising prices and structurally high levels of unemployment, the lay-offs and wage cuts that could result from the economic crisis will fuel anger. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have: http://www.soutien11novembre.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1 http://linsqv.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html For further reading: http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/twenty-theses/

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THE BLUE BUS

A reminder:

The Blue Bus is pleased to present a reading by Geraldine Monk and Jeff Hilson, at The Lamb, 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1, in the upstairs room, on Tuesday 20th January, 7.30. This is the twenty-first in THE BLUE BUS series. Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions). There will be a Blue Bus event shortly after the January reading. On Tuesday 3rd February, we are presenting poets Sharon Morris and James Harvey, music duo Ken White (guitar) and David Miller (clarinet and bass clarinet), and stand-up comedian James Hately. Ken White is visiting from Australia, where he is well known as a jazz guitarist; the Blue Bus event will be his only public appearance in the UK. This will take place at St Andrew's, Short Street, Waterloo, London SE1, from 7.30, in the upstairs hall. (Short Street is off The Cut, just across the road from The Young Vic Theatre. There is a Spanish Tapas Bar, Meson Don Felipe, on the corner of Short Street and The Cut, and The Calder Bookshop is also nearby.

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Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

Thomas Pynchon = "PIN-chawn" not "PIN-shin" or "PIN-chin" etc. etc.

More here. For the record, my name, Alex Davies, is pronounced day-lex ay-vees, where ay sounds like aye, or eh, dependent on the elevation of the tongue.

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European Waistlines

Free, online, trilingual publication of Ida Börjel by G A M M M:

All surfaces have been monitored again today. Head and thoughts are in place; face and mind are set. The Austrian family is clean, sharply fused together. Will the Danes moisten their faces before dinner? Can the Belgian hand ever become truly clean? Austrian hands are completely clean and precise all over the dinner table. The Austrian mind is strong and clean with no squeamishness about it. The Austrian mind is fi rm and steady when the bell rings for breakfast, lunch, and walks. The Austrian air is pure, healthy and composed. British air is foggy, Danish moist, Italian sticky with the press of sweat and smutty insinuation. Austrian secrets are kept.

Read the rest.

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Helen DeWitt - Your Name Here

YOUR NAME HERE and an interview about YOUR NAME HERE. via if:book

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What is visual poetry - its form and its purpose?

For an upcoming issue of Black Robert Journal, Alex Jorgensen would like to include a number of statements related to visual poetry. Your participation will most sincerely be appreciated in what is an effort to explore the various motivations and ideas related to contemporary vispo. As Managing Editor, his hope is to include a myriad of thoughts. Question: What is visual poetry - its form and purpose? Please e-mail all responses to storagebag001@YAHOO.com.

via Crg Hill

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Source Material: A Journal of Appropriated Texts

via David-Baptiste Chirot

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